


When flame burns bright

by eldvarpa



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Non-Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 18:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldvarpa/pseuds/eldvarpa
Summary: Fëanorcouldbreak the Silmarils. Morgoth isn't happy about that. Neither is Maedhros, for different reasons.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 121





	When flame burns bright

They didn't hear the explosion. 

Eithel Sirion was far enough from Angband, and at first everybody was too surprised to realise what exactly they were witnessing.

A huge pillar of light burst free of Morgoth's fortress, tore upwards through the darkness then spread out and slowly tumbled down. Light started pouring and drifting away in every which direction, white and weightless, like a drowsy snowfall. The stars disappeared for a while, erased by a much greater brilliance, and seemed to shine twice as bright after the light settled above the peaks of Thangorodrim.

That was how the few people who happened to be looking north described the explosion. 

Maglor didn't hear it and didn't see it, either. 

The explosion seized him and shook him like a tree caught in a gale.

His mind reeled and he had to lean against a wooden pillar. It took several deep breaths before his heartbeat went back to normal and his head stopped swimming, while the attendants who were with him and were not mesmerized by the conflagration worriedly asked him what was wrong. 

Maglor had a fairly good idea of what was wrong. 

He turned and looked, and knew at once what the light was.

There weren't many options, really. 

He rushed through the tents, which meant he had to elbow his way past soldiers that didn't care that he was their prince at that moment, but were just intent on reaching the best possible spot from which to gaze northwards. Everywhere up and down their line of fortifications overlooking Ard-Galen soldiers were clambering up rocks and towers and other vantage points, cries of bewilderment and awe louder than the stomping of their feet. 

Maglor ran towards their village, ran all the way to the hut where his wounded father was. He slammed the door open. 

Fëanor had collapsed on the floor, while Curufin, dishevelled and close to tears, tried to hold him but could do nothing to stop Fëanor's trembling. 

Maglor gritted his teeth: that was why he had insisted they shouldn't tell their father that Maedhros had been captured, at least not until Fëanor was well enough to deal with the news in a non-entirely-destructive way. 

“Why did you let him do it?” he shouted, and though he was still out of breath he put so much force in his shout that the walls of the hut shook. “Why? This will kill him!”

Curufin yelped, and raised his head. He looked like a lost kitten and Maglor felt a pang of guilt, but he was too angry to let sympathy for his younger brother take over.

“I told you to stop him if he tried! Why didn't you?”

“I – I couldn't! I tried, but Father kept thinking only of Nelyo...it was driving him mad.”

“Maedhros can very well be dead by now!”

“Father is sure he is alive,” Curufin said, but he didn't sound like he believed it. “Cáno, please. Turco is about to ride to Angband to check. Please go with him.”

Fëanor was wheezing and heaving, and he was bleeding through his bandages all over again, the red staining Curufin's clothes. Curufin glanced down at him, then desperately back up at his older brother.

“Please, tell Pityo and Telvo to come here and to bring the healers with them.”

Maglor remained hovering on the threshold, half-sure that was the last time he saw his father alive. 

His father had claimed that breaking the Silmarils would kill him, and Maglor didn't doubt him. His father truly believed that. Maglor could only hope that his father had been wrong, after all. Or maybe Fëanor hadn't broken all three, but Maglor decided not to hang onto the flimsy promise of that idea. 

“I will deal with you later,” he spat, before he rushed out again.

*

Nothing forewarned the explosion. 

There was a vague tingle around his forehead one moment – but the Silmarils in his crown often hurt much worse – and the next moment the top of his head was blown off as the Silmaril he had placed in the middle, a little higher up than his two siblings, exploded in a flash of searing light. 

That flash was the last thing he saw.

His physical eyes went next, but it took him a while to notice that his eyesight was gone too. It should have been impossible, but the useless eyes of the body he could no longer change took his _true_ sight with them. 

That turned out to be the last of his problems.

His body convulsed and he slid down to the floor of the throne room, arching up off the ground as tendons and muscles were stretched to their limits, then slamming down again as if something was actively pushing down on him to flatten him against the stone floor. His tongue stretched out of his mouth, and soon his teeth were biting down on it until it dangled askew over his chin. His hands curled up until his fingertips were securely embedded in his palms.

When the convulsions were over, his armour melted and his skin with it, and once his skin was gone flesh, muscles and tendons started to liquefy together with his bones. 

He would have liked to scream, at least, but he found he had no sort of voice any longer. 

He tried to release himself from that body that was nothing more that a prison steeped in pain, but he couldn't even start to turn that wish into a semblance of Power. 

It had to be the light. 

It had to be that peerless, blessed, all-consuming light. 

It had to be Fëanáro, wishing for his agony.

He started wondering what would take for him, a vala, to truly die.

His body kept burning, burning, burning, and his spirit with it. 

Surely, even a vala could die. 

Even a vala _had_ to die, at some point.

He, the mightiest of the valar, prayed for mercy for the first time in his existence.

*

“They were especially cruel to him,” one of the two thralls who were carrying Maedhros between themselves said. Only the thrall's voice gave her away as a woman: the prisoners all looked the same with their hair matted with months-old grime and their filthy, colourless tunics and the shackles around their hands and feet. 

Maedhros was different: he was naked and covered in wounds from head to toe, his head lolling limply onto his shoulder. His hair had been cut in a very methodical fashion, and some strips of his scalp were missing. His mouth and eyes were both half-open, as if he had been nothing more than a doll, misused and carelessly discarded. Maglor found it better to focus on Maedhros's face, however, while he forced himself not to linger on how Maedhros's wounds must have been inflicted. 

“Moryo, ride back to Eithel Sirion with Nelyo,” he said, and he was relieved that his voice sounded steady enough, and commanding enough.

Caranthir, who stood to his right, just kept staring at Maedhros. 

Maglor gripped Caranthir's arm and yanked on it. “Moryo, listen to me. Nelyo needs to be tended to. Whatever they were doing to him is over. It's over,” he repeated with more power to it, and it helped keep at bay his own horror at his only older brother's torment. “It's over. You get me?”

Caranthir turned to him. He was wide-eyed and not at all red-faced in that moment, but nodded. 

“Once you're there, and Nelyo is safe with the healers,” he stressed the word 'safe', “come back here with all the other healers you can gather. Send messengers to every village down in Hithlum and Mithrim, tell them that the prisoners of Angband have been freed. Send word to Círdan, too. They must have seen the explosion, but it'll be useful to let them know what to expect exactly. Also bring carts to take all the prisoners back home.”

Caranthir nodded, without uttering a word and turned his back on Maedhros and the other prisoners, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground as he retraced his steps to where he had left his horse.

Meanwhile, Celegorm quickly wrapped Maedhros in his mantle – gentleness would not have made a difference, but speed could. He helped Caranthir take him on his horse, also spoke to the horse before letting them go, trusting the mare's good sense more than Caranthir's shock.

By the time Caranthir had ridden off, a small crowd of thralls had gathered around Maglor and Celegorm and the few attendants that had been following them while they searched for Maedhros. 

Some orcs were still emerging from the torn gates of Angband onto lush green grass, with their skin ripped away and dangling from their limbs or dragging on the ground behind them. Some had lost their eyes as well, and tottered helplessly until they fell. The prisoners who had still some strength in them, or were desperate enough, finished them off as they came, with whatever weapon they had been able to find, helped by some of the newly arrived soldiers.

“Are we truly free?” the woman who had been carrying Maedhros asked. She was leaning against her companion now. 

Maglor hesitated. 

Celegorm, who was used to dealing with terrified animals and pups, who could speak all their tongues and often had to use them to comfort, came up with the best answer. “We will make sure of that.”

*

“It stinks as if a thousand horses all decided to poop in the same room at the same time,” Celegorm said when they finally reached Morgoth's throne room, then winced and slapped a hand over his mouth. 

Huan stopped behind him and gave a pitiful whine. 

Maglor scrunched his nose, but resisted the urge to pinch it close. Thankfully, the roof had been blown off by the explosion, or the stench would have been utterly suffocating. “It looks like a thousand horses all decided to poop in the same place, too.”

The corpses of balrogs and other úmaiar on the way to the throne room had more or less retained their shape, at least, but at the foot of the throne they found only a shapeless, black puddle of goop. 

“So ends the most powerful of the valar,” Maglor said, studying the mix of molten metal and flesh with distaste.

Celegorm steadied himself and got closer to the body. Holding his breath, he poked the stinking heap with his boot. The sludge shook and gave the faintest of gurgles.

“Not yet,” Celegorm said. “Not completely, at least.”

Maglor reflexively shifted his hand to the hilt of his sword. “A vala cannot die?”

Celegorm shrugged, backing off. “Maybe.”

“I suppose he cannot get out of _there_ though, or he would have already.”

Celegorm looked up at the light still pooling over the throne. He pointed up at it. “If this got him in that state, I'd say he can't.”

“Well,” Maglor began. His mind wend to the prisoners, and in particular a young woman who had been stabbing a skinless, dead orc over and over. He thought of Maedhros. Of whatever was left of Maedhros. “If the mighty vala can still hear me, I would like to let him know what I think of his current state.”

Maglor sang. Words and melody flowed out of him like water trapped too long behind a dam, anguish and relief mingling in a furious torrent. 

A sizzling sound rose from the goop. 

Motes of light brighter than the mass of light churning above the throne started dancing in the air.

The soldiers who had braved the stench joined in as Maglor began a refrain that would become a popular song on its own among Noldor and Sindar alike. 

While the singing flowed on and became louder and louder, Celegorm slipped behind Morgoth's not-quite-corpse-yet. The Silmarils were still in the crown and the crown was still on the throne. The breaking of their sibling had not disturbed them and the only damage they had suffered was getting besmirched by Morgoth's bodily fluids. 

“We must get those to Father as speedily as possible,” was all Maglor could bring himself to say when he saw them. 

The singing went on even without him.

“I know how.”

Celegorm put the Silmarils in a bag, beckoned Huan close and entrusted it to him.

Huan was all too happy to dart out, the bag securely clutched between his teeth.

A while later, as they were about to leave Morgoth's carcass behind, Celegorm suddenly halted and crouched down. Brushing debris aside, he picked up a shard of silima from the shattered Silmaril. 

It was smooth, warm and – most importantly – still shone. 

*

“Are you sure you're ready?” Amras asked Maedhros, stopping in front of the door to their father's room.

Maedhros nodded, trying to ignore how his scars pulled at the slightest movement. 

The first stages of his recovery had been ugly, to put it mildly. The wounds of his body healed much more easily than the wounds of his mind. He had been in too much pain to even notice the explosion and it took some time before he became aware of his new surroundings. Days later, learning that their father had decided to break one of the Silmarils to rescue him had not made things easier one bit. 

Now he had bathed, even though he hated being wet, and let Amras and Amrod change all his bandages and dress him in a new tunic, though it took him much willpower just to tolerate his own brothers' touch. 

He was by far not ready to face his father, but he missed him and the guilt he felt was too great.

“I want to see him.”

Amras nodded. “Remember, Father cannot see or talk, but he will hear you and you can speak to him in your mind.”

“He is also very weak,” Amrod added.

Maedhros didn't need to be reminded. That was the only thing he had been thinking about ever since Maglor had told him. Which was a blessing, in its own way, but he'd have rather been tormented by his memories of Angband than known his father had nearly killed himself in order to rescue him. “I won't take long, but I must see him.”

The twins ushered him inside their father's room. 

Fëanor was lying on the bed with his eyes closed, under a fleecy blanket.

Curufin leant down and whispered in his ear.

Fëanor stirred but Curufin had to all but drag him up to a sitting position, and that in turn caused a coughing fit.

The sound of it nearly undid Maedhros's determination. If he been able to walk on his own, he was fairly sure he would have just dashed back out of the door and far away from his father. Amrod and Amras steered him towards the bed and helped him sit down on it. He exchanged a glance with Curufin. Curufin tried to smile, but it failed to mask the fact that he'd been crying. Maedhros wondered if he should say something to him, but decided there was nothing he could say to make him feel better, and he had to face his father.

Fëanor reached out with arms that were just bones with a thin layer of skin stretched precariously over them. He lay a cold hand of Maedhros's shoulder. His forehead crinkled as he touched the bandages. He flinched when he realised what they were. His hands slowly made their way up to Maedhros's jaw and his face, ghost-like, where he found scabs and scars, and more bandages. 

Maedhros sat rigid, staring at his father's eyes, devoid of any light, with a dark hollow under them and deep wrinkles all around them.

“I'm sorry Father,” he said, laying his left hand over his father's right as it reached his cheek. “I'm so so sorry. You didn't have to do this for me. You didn't have to break one of the Silmarils because I didn't listen to you, because I was enough of a fool to go parley with Morgoth after you bid us not to. I am so so sorry.”

Fëanor lay the fingers of his left hand on his lips, hushing him, then cupped his face with it too, and drew him closer. Maedhros closed his eyes. Fëanor gently prodded his mind, calling his name. 

Maedhros didn't think he deserved his father's comfort, but he desperately needed it.

When his father offered him his comfort and love, he could not refuse them. 

*

Curufin sleekly wound his way through heaps of maps and missives, and set a small leather pouch down on the desk at which Maglor was sitting. 

Maglor dropped his pen at once and lifted the pouch. He smiled to find it heavier than it looked. 

“Those were gathered by Círdan's people,” Curufin said. “The messenger who delivered them said they are going to comb the coasts and the sea, and send more shards as they find them.”

Maglor glanced up at him. “The sea too?” 

“Yes, the sea too.” 

The silima shards they had recovered so far were re-forming into the Silmaril they had been – the shape of it, at least, but it did look like there was some of the Silmaril's light and power left in them, and maybe if they gathered enough their father's eyesight and speech would be restored.

Maedhros was obsessed with that idea, and was adamant that they must collect every last one of the shards. 

They had already gotten in touch with the few elves who lived in northern East Beleriand and sent ambassadors south into Ossiriand. If Círdan's people were going to search the sea, Maglor's only remaining concern was Doriath. Some of the shards had surely ended up beyond the girdle, and getting them back would need some clever negotiating. The letter Maedhros had penned and addressed to Thingol would have made sure they got none of them back. Peacefully, that is. Maglor had never sent the message and had been trying to come up with a different strategy, which was not an easy task, particularly because most of the north and west Sindar seemed to have no intention to be more amicable towards Doriath than Maedhros's letter was. 

He brushed that concern aside for now and stood up. He circled the desk and hugged Curufin. 

“Let's take these to Father, shall we?” he said.

“Any news from Caranthir and Celegorm?” Curufin asked, as they stepped out in a daylight as bright as the noonday of Valinor and took in the view over Ard-Galen and former-Angband with the tree that had sprouted in Morgoth's throne room and grown to the size of a mountain in a matter of days. The Sindar had dubbed it the Father-Tree. Morgoth was buried under it, hopefully for good. 

“Things are as busy as ever in the healers' camp, and it does look like some of the former thralls might have no kin left here.” Curufin nodded. “I was thinking we should wait until they are healed – as healed as they can be – and let them decide, whether they want to look for kin elsewhere or stay with us or whatever else.”

In his hut, Fëanor was sitting on a wooden bench lined with cushions and blankets between Maedhros and Celebrimbor. He wasn't so pale now and his hands were steady as he jotted down figures and notes on a piece of battered parchment supported by a wooden board. 

Celebrimbor looked up and smiled at his father and uncle as they entered, but quickly focused all of his attention on Fëanor's handwriting again and his calculations for their first joint project. 

Curufin took in the sight and let his shoulders go slack. He would have done it himself, of course, he would have been his father's eyes and hands in the forge if he absolutely needed to, but Celebrimbor could do a better job of it: Celebrimbor's inventive matched his grandfather's more closely. Curufin murmured a greeting to his father and squeezed himself next to his son, happy to fade in the background and just be close to them.

Maglor crossed the room towards the Silmarils as silently as possible. Maedhros was asleep, his head resting on Fëanor's shoulder. His breathing was even, his posture relaxed. 

Maglor didn't think any shards or any Silmarils could heal their father more than that.

**Author's Note:**

> úmaiar = bad bad maiar.
> 
> This is technically just the premise of an AU where the Fëanorians have to go on a long long journey to recover all the Silmaril shards, because of the valar.


End file.
